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Prosecutors: Texts show Michael Johnson wanted to flee

Prosecutors used phone calls and text messages on Thursday in the Phylicia Barnes murder case to try to show defendant Michael Johnson thought about fleeing the country before he was charged.

Wiretapped phone calls and texts between Johnson and relatives show he was worried about the Barnes case enough that he thought about leaving the country.

"I feel like everything is about the hit the fan," Johnson told his girlfriend in the fall of 2011. "I feel like I should just pack up and leave."

The texts were intercepted six months after Barnes' body was found in the Susquehanna River, 10 months after she'd disappeared. Johnson was the last person to see her alive and the suspect in the case.

"I don't want to, but that's how I feel," he went on in the text message. "I mean, leave this country."

In a phone conversation with his brother, Johnson worried his DNA would be linked to Barnes. He also talked of the difference between first- and second-degree murder, but the investigator who listened to the call testified Johnson did not confess.

The investigation of Barnes' murder shifted from Baltimore City to Harford County after her body was found in the river. Witnesses appeared before a grand jury but no indictment in Harford County was issued.

"Was it decided by Harford County there wasn't enough to proceed?" a defense lawyer asked.

"Yes sir," an investigator replied.

Johnson was indicted by a Baltimore City grand jury. Johnson's defense is trying to show the case is tainted by credibility problems.

The lead city detective Daniel Nicholson is suspended amid allegations he lied to investigators about what he did in the search for his daughter last year.

Jurors paid keen attention when Johnson's lawyers grilled Nicholson about his own troubles. He played dumb, answering he wasn't aware of the allegations.

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